AUG 9, 2007: France's largest bank, BNP Paribas, freezes withdrawals from three investment funds after U.S. subprime mortgage losses crush markets. "The complete evaporation of liquidity in certain market segments of the U.S. securitization market has made it impossible to value certain assets fairly regardless of their quality or credit rating," BNP said in the release.

OCT 24, 2007: Merrill Lynch announces an $8.4 billion quarterly loss, the largest in its history, thanks to write-downs on subprime mortgages.

Source: Bloomberg

OCT 31, 2007: Meredith Whitney says Citigroup will have to cut its dividend. Later, it does.

OCT - NOV 2007: Many CEOs would not make it through the financial crisis. Stan O'Neal at Merrill and Chuck Prince at Citigroup both bite the dust, departing in shame but with monster severance packages. O'Neal, for one, walked out with $161.5 million.

Source: NBC

DEC 11, 2007: The FOMC reduces the federal funds rate to 4.25% and cuts the primary credit rate to 4.75%.

SEP 16, 2008: For only the second time in history, a money market fund "breaks the buck" and reports shares' value below $1. Americans run on money market funds, long considered safe havens, en masse. $140 billion has been withdrawn year-to date.

FALL 2008: Longstanding banking giants like Wachovia and Washington Mutual begin to disappear as they are bought by other banks for pennies on the dollar.

Source: WSJ, CNN Money

SEP 29, 2008: The U.S. House of Representatives defeats a proposed $700 billion emergency bailout package 228-205. Stocks collapse as the votes are counted live.

Source: NYT

OCT 13, 2008: Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson sits down with 9 major bank CEOs. When they leave the room hours later, the federal government has taken a huge equity position in Wall Street. The total bailout package looks more like $2.25 trillion, well more than the original $700 billion available.

OCT 16, 2008: Warren Buffett authors a New York Times op-ed called "Buy American. I Am." He gets absolutely crushed by critics when markets crash further. Rising stock prices in the post-crisis years would later vindicate him.

Source: NYT

OCT 2008: Commentators wonder if this is the end of life as we know it. "The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism," wrote the Washington Post's Anthony Faiola. Simon Jenkins at the Guardian called this line of thinking "journalistic wish-fulfillment and glee."

Eventually, thanks to extraordinary bailouts from the Fed and the Congress the market bottomed and the economy slowly recovered.

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